Template talk:Infobox basketball biography/Archive 3

Usage of athletic clubs colors?
Colors of athletic clubs in the basketball infoboxes falls to the WP:COLOR, because give not important informations, the choice of colors is controversial and are a reason for edit wars. Also, basketball players are not only members of clubs but maybe are members of national teams too. For these reasons I suggest their removal from the infobox. --IM-yb (talk) 19:13, 1 October 2015 (UTC) Association football, baseball, ice hockey and other sports has not colors of clubs in the players infoboxes. Usage of colors is only for basketball players infoboxes. The reason is not about contrast. Is about WP:COLOR which speaks about colors who gives important informations. What is the important information who gives the colors? Are for identify of the current club? And what about the national teams? The choice of the colors is based in sources or is at the discretion of each user? --IM-yb (talk) 21:05, 1 October 2015 (UTC) In each case, the three colors are too mach (i speak for the border) in the infobox. All your examples (about the other sports) has two colors. Most of the teams have two or one official "home" color (with unstable away colors). --IM-yb (talk) 00:51, 2 October 2015 (UTC)
 * Uh, no. The use of team colors for athlete and team infoboxes is well established; there are no "edit wars."  The major concern we have is making sure that the contrast between background and text colors complies with WP:ACCESS, and great efforts have been made to ensure that color contrast is AAA-compliant throughout the major sports projects.  Dirtlawyer1 (talk) 20:40, 1 October 2015 (UTC)
 * You are mistaken, IM-yb. We do use team colors for active (as opposed to retired) baseball players in Template:Infobox baseball biography.  Team colors selection is not "at the discretion of each user"; the colors used are the colors of the player's current team, and there are entire color modules for each sport that ensure all players of each team have identical colors.  See, e.g., Alex Rodriguez, which uses the blue and gray team colors of the New York Yankees.  Same for Template:Infobox NFL player, Template:Infobox basketball biography, and Template:Infobox college football player.  The infoboxes of most national team members do not utilize team colors, but many do use national flag icons to symbolize national team membership.  See, e.g., Template:Infobox swimmer and Template:Infobox ice hockey player.  FYI, comparing any other sport to association football would be a mistake; WikiProject Football has its own unique standards for when it uses team colors and flag icons, which are different from every other sport on Wikipedia.  Dirtlawyer1 (talk) 21:52, 1 October 2015 (UTC)
 * Can you provide a specific example of a team color where one of the colors is not associated with the team? Frankly, I don't believe one exists. ~ RobTalk 01:36, 2 October 2015 (UTC)

In the Infobox Basketball club of the Olympiacos article someone gives maroon as the color of Olympiacos! We spend many time to find a common acceptable and representative (with good contrast) color in the european clubs, and now we have a third color to manage, because it adopted from that template (Infobox basketball biography). We have and other more important works, except the correction of wrong colors. --IM-yb (talk) 11:22, 2 October 2015 (UTC) It is not necessary to remove the colors, but at least the third color that does not exist in many teams like this. --IM-yb (talk) 23:09, 21 October 2015 (UTC)
 * Wikipedia is a group collaboration, and what is important to one editor might not be important to another. We all get frustrated when we see "unimportant" information that might also be incorrect.  Sure it could just be uniformly removed, but the decision to do so would need consensus.  At this point, there is no consensus to remove the colors.—Bagumba (talk) 19:52, 16 October 2015 (UTC)
 * What is the concern if a team has a verifiable third color?—Bagumba (talk) 23:26, 21 October 2015 (UTC)

A team may have three and four colors but these teams are minimal. In addition to the other problems, there is always the problem of verification. Where is the verifiable colors? Anyone gives their view about colors (see the third color of Real Madrid Baloncesto, Camel!, even the second color, "black", is doubtful). --IM-yb (talk) 14:36, 22 October 2015 (UTC)
 * Another reason to lock down the color modules; reliable sources should be provided for all team colors, including European teams in the basketball color module. You do realize that many, if not most European association football/soccer teams regularly change their colors, and often have completely different home and away uniform colors, right?  Some of the European teams in other sports also have similar team colors "flexibility".  No doubt this seems weird to Americans and Canadians, whose college and pro teams have often had the same colors for 50 or even 100 years (Harvard Crimson, anyone?  New York Yankees pinstripes?).  Dirtlawyer1 (talk) 14:56, 22 October 2015 (UTC)
 * Background: There's a related discussion at Module talk:College color/data that DL is indirectly referencing.—Bagumba (talk) 15:38, 22 October 2015 (UTC)
 * DL: As an editor, I add footnotes to 90+% of all my added content, so I'm all for providing reliable sources. However, if you are requesting protection from me as an admin, I'll note that WP:V says: "... any material whose verifiability has been challenged or is likely to be challenged, must include an inline citation that directly supports the material." It's unclear that this is all being challenged, as there has been no obvious signs of reverts or discussion at this template. Many WP articles have little if any references, but they are not automatically protected for that reason alone, which would in itself be a barrier towards others improving it. I get that there is frustration when incorrect information is discovered, but that is a content issue to be dealt with through dispute resolution, and not an automatic reason to protect. The problem of inaccurate editing is not unique to this template.—Bagumba (talk) 15:38, 22 October 2015 (UTC)
 * You may want to do a Google search for the official Hex or Pantone colors for the European teams in question. Most American college and professional sports teams actually post their official Hex and/or Pantone team colors somewhere on their websites because it is an important element of their branding.  Presumably, some European teams do the same thing.  Dirtlawyer1 (talk) 15:01, 22 October 2015 (UTC)


 * - as far as I am aware, each NBA team has three official colours, so reflecting that in the infobox is supported by RS. Do I personally agree with it? No. Is there clear consensus that the colours should remain? Yes. A better compromise would be to make these colour parameters optional, so that if they are not filled in they use standard, default colours. GiantSnowman 21:17, 22 October 2015 (UTC)

Dirtlawyer1 I agree that the usage of colors should be based on sources. Bagumba in the examples I quoted were not used sources for colors. Giant where is the clear consensous? The value of color usage can be challenged at any time by any user (WP:CCC). I want to make it clear that I do not intend to create problems for those wishing to use the colors.I mention my views and my legitimate worry about the subject, which were expressed above also based on other users' edits. --IM-yb (talk) 13:43, 23 October 2015 (UTC)


 * Sorry, but I've already spoken my piece here and I'm not going to repeat myself (again, and again) in order to address your personal preferences. If there are no reliable sources for Real Madrid Balconcesto's team colors, then let's remove them from the affected Real Madrid player infoboxes (perhaps making the colors optional for certain teams and/or leagues per GiantSnowman above).  But you need to hear the wisdom of what GiantSnowman said: there is a strong consensus to maintain the team colors option within this template, and there are literally hundreds of teams and thousands of players that are affected.  And, yes, there is a very strong consensus to maintain the use of team colors for players in the NBA, WNBA, American college basketball and many other leagues around the planet.  If you don't like team colors, then start an RfC, but let's recognize that its likelihood of success in removing the team colors option from the template is slim.  Cheers.  Dirtlawyer1 (talk) 14:15, 23 October 2015 (UTC)
 * The consensus is evident in this discussion, and in the fact that this has remained unchallenged for years. GiantSnowman 16:04, 23 October 2015 (UTC)

National team parameter
Nationality is one thing, and international representation another. I think it is only about time we add a "National team" parameter. Examples:


 * Oliver Lafayette, nationality: American, Croatian, national team: Croatia.
 * Milko Bjelica, nationality: Serbian, Montenegrin, national team: Montenegro.
 * Emir Preldžić, nationality: Bosnian, Slovenian, Turkish, national team: Turkey.
 * Jake Cohen, nationality: American, Israeli, national team: Israel.

I could go on, you get it. The parameter could either have its own header, or added to Career history.--Z oupan 09:43, 8 May 2015 (UTC)}}
 * I believe annotations will work best here, minor footnotes on each entry to explain subject's relationship with nation is question. It will be helpful in cases where subjects have four or more states. --Oranges Juicy (talk) 10:55, 8 May 2015 (UTC)
 * Red information icon with gradient background.svg Not done: please establish a consensus for this alteration before using the template. Do any other sportsperson infoboxes make this distinction? -- Red rose64 (talk) 12:38, 8 May 2015 (UTC)
 * I never ordered "do it", it would be a long drawn-out operation anyhow and I am well aware it needs many more editors to agree. I think your call of not done was a little early since consensus discussion has just begun. --Oranges Juicy (talk) 14:54, 8 May 2015 (UTC)


 * Is there anything new to consider here since the previous discussion on this topic. Otherwise, I'm OK with the status quo to not have this.—Bagumba (talk) 23:38, 14 May 2015 (UTC)
 * Judging by the fact of nationality ≠ national team (see the examples above), there should be no problem in including national team, perhaps as Template:Infobox football biography has it.--Z oupan 01:56, 15 May 2015 (UTC)
 * I think continuing to list national team events for which a medal is earned is sufficient for the infobox. Per MOS:INFOBOX: "The less information it contains, the more effectively it serves that purpose, allowing readers to identify key facts at a glance." Mention of other national team participation  can be done in the prose.—Bagumba (talk) 21:16, 27 May 2015 (UTC)
 * Summoned by bot. Having had a quick look at past discussion, I don't see the need or advantage of this change. I second Bagumba's point that info-boxes should not be over-burdened. With any sport, birth place or birth nationality is a detail, membership of a national team/squad is what is notable. Pincrete (talk) 08:48, 5 June 2015 (UTC)
 * I understand that if a player has played on national team level, and if so, the number of games played for the national team is an interesting data to appear. This data is available in the template of other languages. --Maku17 (talk) 12:54, 17 September 2015 (UTC)
 * Not all "interesting data" is notable enough to be in the infobox. However, there's no reason it can't be included in the prose.—Bagumba (talk) 22:45, 30 January 2016 (UTC)

WNBA stats
Would it be a good idea if the infobox was able to link to WNBA players' stats from basketball reference? Like Sue Bird. WikiOriginal-9 (talk) 23:42, 28 June 2016 (UTC)
 * Nvm lol. WikiOriginal-9 (talk) 17:35, 29 June 2016 (UTC)

Well, you could still add bbr_euro, bbr_nbl and bbr_dleague for players that only played in one of those leagues. WikiOriginal-9 (talk) 17:40, 29 June 2016 (UTC)

Template-protected edit request on 23 August 2016 (Expanding Personal Data section)
Would like to add additional information to the personal life section, including spouse and siblings. This would make the biography a bit more comprehensive and allow users to more quickly summarize what is found in the "Personal Life" section of an article. For example: | spouse            = name (m. 2016) Zurich899 (talk) 08:15, 23 August 2016 (UTC)
 * Red information icon with gradient background.svg Not done for now: With due respect, I'm marking this as not done for now. While a template like Infobox person does have spouse, for example, (see Template:Infobox_person), please make sure you have a consensus for the change for this template. Does WikiProject National Basketball Association or WikiProject Basketball know about this change? Also, keep in mind that an infobox is not suppose to contain every piece of information (see WP:INFOBOXPURPOSE). If you're certain that your suggested additions have support, and does not go against infobox guidelines, consider coding it up at Template:Infobox basketball biography/sandbox first, perhaps making testcases for it (Template:Infobox basketball biography/testcases) to check its output, and re-open here. Hope this is acceptable. — Andy W.  ( talk  · ctb) 14:40, 23 August 2016 (UTC)
 * Oppose addition Per WP:INFOBOXPURPOSE: "The less information it contains, the more effectively it serves that purpose, allowing readers to identify key facts at a glance." Few notable basketball players are defined by their spouse or siblings.—Bagumba (talk) 16:33, 23 August 2016 (UTC)
 * Oppose addition Family members aren't part of the critical components of an athletic career and for many athletes this isn't reported on to the degree that it is for, say, entertainers. Many articles have "personal life" sections in the prose and I feel like this covers family adequately. Rikster2 (talk) 12:16, 24 August 2016 (UTC)

Youth departments
Hello everybody, I suggest we should add a "Youth career" parameter, like Template:Infobox football biography has. There are already high school parameters, but for European players "youth career" is needed. For example, if you view Isaiah Hartenstein's page, it seems like he has been playing pro basketball since 2009 (when he was 11). I think there should be clear separation between youth clubs and pro clubs. I'd like to hear what you think. --H-Hurry (talk) 14:43, 28 July 2016 (UTC)
 * I get the need and would be interested in seeing what it could look like. I don't believe that high school and college should go in that section (no one in the US calls this their "youth career") and I fear we'd have to trade that off. One difference with footy is that footballers don't change teams as often as basketball players do so our infoboxes tend to get longer anyway. Rikster2 (talk) 12:21, 24 August 2016 (UTC)

Request: Convert this infobox so it could be used as a module
Can anyone convert this infobox so it could be used as a module. This could be useful for basketball players who also held political posts as well as to those who played in other sports such as association football.Hariboneagle927 (talk) 12:17, 14 September 2016 (UTC)
 * I believe that it already can be – see Chris Dudley. Rikster2 (talk) 15:12, 14 September 2016 (UTC)

Adding national teams
Can information for the years on the natioanal team be added please. Thanks, Sander.v.Ginkel (Talk) 09:13, 16 November 2016 (UTC) | headerXX = | dataXX  =
 * Red information icon with gradient background.svg Not done: please establish a consensus for this alteration before using the template. —&thinsp;JJMC89&thinsp; (T·C) 16:28, 16 November 2016 (UTC)
 * IMHO, this is long overdue, the national team career of basketball players are as important as the club career. Hence I support the addition of national teams in the infobox. The basketball biography infobox is the only infobox that does not list the national team that players played for.Hariboneagle927 (talk) 01:14, 17 November 2016 (UTC)
 * That actually isn't true - neither do ice hockey or tennis to name two. I am going to link this discussion to the basketball wiki projects to weigh in since this has wide impact. The infobox is already really long Rikster2 (talk) 02:32, 17 November 2016 (UTC)
 * Ice Hockey does, while tennis has the "country represented" parameter. Since the infobox is already too long, I think the career highlights is problematic while a national team parameter in comparison will just take one or two lines in the infobox for an average player. It maybe argued that the medal template already covers this but how about players that were part of minnow national teams that did not win a single medal?Hariboneagle927 (talk) 02:52, 17 November 2016 (UTC)
 * Ice hockey does not list the tenures, only the country. In contrast, the basketball infobox lists nationality, which is defined as the country or countries they are eligible to play for. The basketball box already lists medals in international play, so the question is what gets removed in favor of national team? Nationality? Medals? Highlights covers different information. Rikster2 (talk) 02:55, 17 November 2016 (UTC)
 * I say nationality since, what matters more is the country the players actually represented. Because how do we deal with a hypothetical player who gains another citizenship after his national team career and has to give up his original citizenship and his team never won a medal?Hariboneagle927 (talk) 05:02, 17 November 2016 (UTC)
 * But nationality applies to all players. I think it's more useful/important to note what country a person is a citizen of than to note national team play for the subset of players who were members of their national team. Just my 2 cents. Rikster2 (talk) 11:47, 17 November 2016 (UTC)

HOF link is broken
The HOF link format doesn't work anymore because of changes to the URL. Here is the current format: http://www.hoophall.com/hall-of-famers/tag/ This is how it should be now: http://www.hoophall.com/hall-of-famers/  Note that the tag was removed. I would edit this if I could. lukini (talk &#124; contribs) 17:53, 17 November 2016 (UTC)
 * User:Lukini, fixed. Frietjes (talk) 19:33, 15 December 2016 (UTC)

draft_year_pba parameter
Hi. Can someone change the parameter options of "draft_year_pba"? The first PBA draft was done in 1985. Players who started playing from 1975 to 1984 are directly hired. The red link generated by this template for players that began playing from 1975 to 1984 is a bit misleading. Thanks. -WayKurat (talk) 02:00, 22 March 2017 (UTC)
 * WayKurat, can you provide an example article? it would help with implementation/debugging. Frietjes (talk) 14:31, 22 March 2017 (UTC)
 * nevermind, found Frankie Lim. should work now. Frietjes (talk) 14:39, 22 March 2017 (UTC)
 * If there was no draft before 1985, shouldn't "draft_year_pba" just be blank? If there really was a draft, the Philippine Basketball Association draft article should be updated as such.—Bagumba (talk) 15:52, 22 March 2017 (UTC)

Why do we have the parameter "draft_year_pba" when we have the parameter "draft_league" that can say "PBA" and ink to the appropriate article? Rikster2 (talk) 16:08, 22 March 2017 (UTC)
 * , thanks for the help.
 * , Most of the articles used the "draft_year_pba" parameter to indicate when the player entered the PBA. Examples are Robert Jaworski, Ramon Fernandez and Bogs Adornado. All of these players first played in the PBA in 1975, the year when the league was founded. The creators of these articles may have mistaken to use that parameter and entered the year the player first played in the PBA, not considering if there was a draft in that year.
 * , I'm not sure but maybe it got added before the infobox template got locked out. -WayKurat (talk) 16:18, 22 March 2017 (UTC)

FIBA Hall of Fame link needs to be fixed
The URL is different. For example ---> Bluesangrel (talk) 16:35, 7 April 2017 (UTC)
 * Bluesangrel, now fixed. Frietjes (talk) 16:57, 10 April 2017 (UTC)

Please use HTTPS for Basketball-Reference.com links
The purpose of this edit is to provide increased privacy and security for users by having the template use HTTPS when generating links to Basketball-Reference.com pages. The Basketball-Reference.com site appears to support HTTPS; for example, http://www.basketball-reference.com/players/b/birdla01.html generates a 301 Moved Permanently redirect to https://www.basketball-reference.com/players/b/birdla01.html. In the template, please change both instances of  (there are two instances) to   instead. Thanks. --Elegie (talk) 09:07, 28 August 2017 (UTC)
 * Yes check.svg Done Again, you know where WP:RFP/TE is. Cabayi (talk) 09:27, 28 August 2017 (UTC)

Birth Name Parameter?
Would it be appropriate to implement a birth name parameter (as birth_name and/or birthname) like is implemented for Template:Infobox person? I was reading the Kareem Abdul-Jabbar article and thought it was strange it didn't have his birth name in the infobox. I've checked around and some of the sportsperson infobox templates have the birth name as a parameter (e.g. some of the motorsports person templates, Template:Infobox sportsperson), but many do not as well. Helixer ( hábleme ) 03:27, 10 January 2017 (UTC)
 * I think the field would unfortunately be used to clutter most players to have their full name including middle name. Infoboxes should be kept to a minimum, so the fact there is no consensus across infoboxes is another indication to me we should opt for minimalism.—Bagumba (talk) 05:20, 10 January 2017 (UTC)
 * I would support adding it, with a check that it's not the same as the name. this parameter was recently added to Template:Infobox football biography (which has over 10 times more transclusions than this template). The most useful application is for people who change names after marriage.  Frietjes (talk) 13:43, 8 February 2017 (UTC)
 * If you ask me, the reason why we don't have that kind of thing around is so we don't have a Dikembe Mutombo situation at hand. - AGreatPhoenixSunsFan (talk) 00:39, 30 August 2017 (UTC)

Request: Include general manager or front office parameters / template data
Hey, I noticed that we have a coaching parameter here for former NBA players that have become (assistant) head coaches, but nothing at all in regards to how they've performed as a general manager or some other front office role for a team, like assistant general manager, for example. It's not like it isn't a viable possibility for them; both Danny Ainge and Larry Bird are two names that come to mind for former NBA players to take on general manager roles after being head coaches in the NBA. Steve Kerr was formerly a general manager himself before being a head coach for the Golden State Warriors. Even people like James Jones and Artūras Karnišovas are more recent examples of former basketball players having front office roles altogether. Therefore, I request that for former basketball players that may or may not have coached in the NBA before, they have something that showcases the years they've been either a general manager of a team or have held some sort of front office role for a basketball team altogether. - AGreatPhoenixSunsFan (talk) 00:39, 30 August 2017 (UTC)
 * I wouldn't mind adding. Note that there was no consensus in an earlier discussion with  and . at Wikipedia_talk:WikiProject_Basketball/Archive4.—Bagumba (talk) 07:00, 30 August 2017 (UTC)
 * I wouldn't mind adding - is there a way to name it so it could also be used for college administrative roles like Athletic Director? Are we talking about adding line items for each job, though? That probably deserves further discussion as the possibility it would clog up the infobox could be pretty high. Need to factor in with the current proposal to merge the basketball official infobox (which would be a fourth set of parameters) Rikster2 (talk) 13:21, 30 August 2017 (UTC)
 * Honestly, I was thinking more along the lines of something more simplified like front office or administration over going over each and every single possible role at hand. Seriously, new roles seem to get added more and more within places like the NBA as years go by, and sometimes, we don't even know how long they originally lasted in the first place. We could always specify the certain role within the team parameter if it's a problem, such as Michael Jordan owning the Charlotte Hornets (and Bobcats?) or Scott Perry being assistant general manager (labelled as "Assistant GM" for short). In fact, the only time I can see a legitimate problem is if it's someone like Mark West, a former NBA player who's have multiple roles within the Phoenix Suns franchise outside of his playing days. Even then, if it's agreed that the former player's roles were of multiple distinctions, we could maybe list them as various and go from there within the article. Thoughts? – AGreatPhoenixSunsFan (talk) 04:00, 5 September 2017 (UTC)


 * Support this. Template:Infobox NFL biography already has this; see Jim Finks for an example where his career as a player, a coach, and an administrator are all covered in the infobox. Ejgreen77 (talk) 13:18, 1 September 2017 (UTC)
 * Good to see you again, by the way. :) – AGreatPhoenixSunsFan (talk) 04:00, 5 September 2017 (UTC)


 * Support - many former players end up being not only coaches, but also assistant general managers, general managers, club executive officers, etc. Bluesangrel (talk) 19:15, 11 September 2017 (UTC)
 * Suggestion Can somebody mock up a couple of navboxes with this parameter - any "worst cases" out there where someone has been a player/coach/exec with a lot of teams so we can see what the impact would be? Rikster2 (talk) 20:30, 11 September 2017 (UTC)

National teams in the infobox
There is a discussion about the inclusion of national teams at Wikipedia talk:WikiProject Basketball again and some people are ignoring previous discussions. Please give your opinions there. – Sabbatino (talk) 07:15, 15 September 2017 (UTC)

Coach with double position
Hi guys, there are some coaches that trains one team and one national team (like Romeo Sacchetti, Sergio Scariolo, Vincent Collet and so on). What should I use for the parameter team? Thanks Towerman86 (talk) 07:18, 26 July 2018 (UTC)
 * Per the thread above (now archived at Wikipedia_talk:WikiProject_Basketball/Archive_12), there is no consensus to add national teams, other than medals won, to the infobox.—Bagumba (talk) 07:35, 26 July 2018 (UTC)
 * Thanks ;) --Towerman86 (talk) 07:38, 31 July 2018 (UTC)

Executive
Would it be possible to add an executive role? Mitch Kupchak's infobox isn't exactly complete without mentioning his long-time executive stint with the Lakers, for example. Howard the Duck (talk) 20:20, 2 August 2018 (UTC)
 * There is basic support for this in the discussion on this page. My request was for someone to mock up an example wher a person has a varied career as a player, coach, and executive so we can see if it gets cluttered. No one has done that yet, which I think would help the discussion. Rikster2 (talk) 21:34, 2 August 2018 (UTC)
 * There could be an issue with chronology. Steve Kerr, for example, was an executive before he became a coach, and I'd imagine Executive career section will come after the Coaching career section here. I'd be happy if someone does a mock up first. Howard the Duck (talk) 20:11, 10 August 2018 (UTC)

Request: HOF color
I've noticed that the HOF fields don't include the gold background color ( - hex #ffbb00) for this template. Can we include this color for the HOF fields just like Template:Infobox college coach? Thanks. Cubbie15fan (talk) 15:54, 15 February 2019 (UTC)

Height in metres instead of centimetres?
It appears this template outputs conversions of height in metres rather than centimetres; in countries that measure human heights in metric, cm is the norm, and other infobox templates automatically output in cm. Could this be changed? Curly "JFC" Turkey 🍁 ¡gobble! 10:56, 8 June 2019 (UTC)
 * In the last discussion, there was no consensus to change from m to cm. As another reference point, a football player like Lionel Messi is listed in m too.—Bagumba (talk) 11:34, 8 June 2019 (UTC)
 * Bagumba—thanks for pointing that out. The cite for Messi's height actually uses cm, so I've fixed it.
 * I don't know what the holdup is over this—there seems to be oppoosition to switching to cm in some corners of Wikipedia, but the opposers don't seem to be saying it's because m is actually more common ... Curly "JFC" Turkey 🍁 ¡gobble! 01:22, 12 June 2019 (UTC)
 * You could advertise this discussion at WT:NBA and WT:BASKETBALL and see what others think.—Bagumba (talk) 05:06, 12 June 2019 (UTC)
 * FWIW, I see that your Messi change to cm was reverted. Having not grown up with metric, I don't have any personal experience with this, so am looking compelling arguments to change the status quo. Also, examples like Euroleague.net using meters doesn't make it obvious to change to cm. Regards.—Bagumba (talk) 06:08, 4 July 2019 (UTC)

Template-protected edit request on 23 August 2019
Per a content dispute over Mehryn Kraker (diff) and a suggestion at my talk page, I'm requesting that the "home_town" parameter (exists in Template:Infobox person) be added to this template as a reasonable means of settling the content dispute. Etzedek24 (I'll talk at ya) (Check my track record) 23:50, 23 August 2019 (UTC)
 * Oppose There's already a high_school field, which typically also lists its location parenthetically. That generally is more important to see at a glance, and I would guess duplicates 90+% of players' hometowns (as in this case), and the rest would be some neighboring city. Moreover, we'd clutter the infobox in cases where the hometown was the same as the birthplace. Per MOS:INFOBOXPURPOSE: "The less information it contains, the more effectively it serves that purpose, allowing readers to identify key facts at a glance." ( On a side note, it wouldn't solve everything about the dispute. The article's body still claimed she was born in her hometown without a verifiable source. )—Bagumba (talk) 01:15, 24 August 2019 (UTC)
 * Red information icon with gradient background.svg Not done: please establish a consensus for this alteration before using the template. Izno (talk) 01:55, 24 August 2019 (UTC)


 * Oppose per Bagumba. We don't need to add another field to this infobox just to draw possible differentiation from birthplace and hometown when it will frequently overlap. And then there will come the inevitable disputes about sources conflating birthplaces with hometowns and vice versa. There is zero need to open up this can of worms. If anything, a differentiation can be included in the prose, but even that wouldn't solve the issue. MOS:INFOBOXPURPOSE should be the guideline here. SportsGuy789 (talk) 03:15, 24 August 2019 (UTC)

Edit request: Playing years - need more lines
Hi : Can you please edit the documentation so that the total number of teams and years that the person played for be increased from 40 to 50? I added the infobox to Honey Russell, which utilizes years41, team41, years42, and team42, but the infobox's parameters only allow up to 40 teams. I understand that he's a rare exception, but we still need to have his career history accurately fleshed out in the infobox. Thank you! SportsGuy789 (talk) 01:23, 30 November 2019 (UTC)
 * Perhaps make an editorial decision and cut the less notable teams and place them in the body. It's not a good experience on mobile phone to have to scroll that massive infobox (MOS:INFOBOXPURPOSE).—Bagumba (talk) 05:43, 30 November 2019 (UTC)
 * I understand where you're coming from, except in Honey Russell's case he's a Hall of Famer known for his incredibly long career, playing for many teams in over 3,200 games. And it ought to not be up to editorial discretion to exclude teams from an infobox when all of those teams were relevant to the player's career history (especially at a time when basketball was still developing, therefore those teams were all important to note). SportsGuy789 (talk) 06:33, 30 November 2019 (UTC)
 * Likewise, I can respect that lesser players have all there stints listed, notable or not, as long as there's 40 or less. Still, Russell's HOF profile manages to capture his significance without enumerating every league he played in, let alone every team. I was actually suprised we already allow 40 entries. Regards.—Bagumba (talk) 10:13, 30 November 2019 (UTC)

I agree with SportsGuy that it should be expanded. There are a remarkably small number of basketball figures for whom they will even get close to this number. I’d prefer adjusting the box than having individual editors just determine which teams are important and which ones aren’t. Rikster2 (talk) 13:29, 30 November 2019 (UTC)
 * I simplified the code to use a lua module which has no restriction on the number of entries, but I added tracking with Category:Pages using infobox basketball biography with long career for discussion. I can make the module (1) act as it is now, (2) put a limit on the number of rows and/or issue an error/warning, (3) collapse sections with more than a predetermined number of entries, or (4) have the option to collapse a particular section. Frietjes (talk) 16:16, 30 November 2019 (UTC)
 * Thank you Frietjes! Personally I'm in favor of keeping it as it is now. After all, there might only be a couple other players/coaches out there still remaining that will exceed 40 lines, so I don't believe that collapsing is necessary at this time. Plus you created that tracker category in case this topic needs to be re-visited. SportsGuy789 (talk) 17:40, 30 November 2019 (UTC)

Edit request: personal info
I think there should be parameters for the players' spouse, parents, and relatives — almost all biographical infoboxes include that. I'm asking this specifically because of the Kobe Bryant article; I was going to include his father, Joe Bryant, in the infobox, but there wasn't a parameter. —  Melofors   TC  04:35, 27 January 2020 (UTC)
 * WP:BASKETBALL has had discussions about this and consensus is not to add this kind of info. The infobox is first and foremost to encapsulate their playing/coaching career and for 99.9% of basketball figures this is superfluous information. Not to mention in many cases families are not in the public eye. There is typically a “personal life” section of player/coach articles and in Kobe’s case there is an eponymous infobox with notable family members like Joe Bryant already in it. Rikster2 (talk) 12:56, 27 January 2020 (UTC)

Wikidata info
What is needed to adapt this template and collect information from wikidata? A lot of information, such images, could be updated more quickly and dynamically. --Yuanga (talk) 20:35, 29 January 2020 (UTC)

Adding Death Cause
Should we consider adding death cause to this template? Some basketball players die in ways that are relevant to their notability (ex:Kobe Bryant). Iamreallygoodatcheckers (talk) 01:25, 29 January 2020 (UTC)
 * I guess. Also the parameter "spouse" should be added. --User123o987name (talk) 06:48, 29 January 2020 (UTC)
 * The way Wikipedia works, people fill in fields whether they are notable for that person or not. For that reason, we should continue to limit it, inasmuch as possible, to fields that apply to most people. If it's important, it can be in the lead prose.—Bagumba (talk) 08:33, 29 January 2020 (UTC)
 * It is the rare basketball player for whom cause of death has much to do with their notability. In my opinion we should not add a parameter for everyone just to accommodate cases like Kobe or Len Bias, who are obvious exceptions. With regard to “spouse,” this information isn’t critical for notability for the vast majority of cases (somebody like Kris Humphries being an exception) and in most cases the spouse isn’t notable. The infobox for players can be very full just with the teams they have played for and awards/honors - we don’t need more “stuff” in there. All of this information should be in the article if it’s notable. Rikster2 (talk) 12:06, 29 January 2020 (UTC)
 * I understand that inboxes can become long with information, and that not every basketball player has a notable death or spouse, but some do. We could just clearly state in the documentation that these parameters are only to be filled if it's notable to the subject. Iamreallygoodatcheckers (talk) 02:50, 30 January 2020 (UTC)
 * I think you really need to be careful about changing an infobox used by literally thousands of subjects for the sake of a handful of cases. It’s not like cause of death isn’t discussed in the articles themselves, and in the lead for this cases like Kobe where it really is notable. Rikster2 (talk) 03:18, 30 January 2020 (UTC)

Template-protected edit request on 17 April 2020
change

| label6  = Born

| data6  =

to

| label6   = Born

| data6    =

dmartin969 01:04, 17 April 2020 (UTC)
 * Red information icon with gradient background.svg Not done for now: please establish a consensus for this alteration before using the template.—Bagumba (talk) 01:12, 17 April 2020 (UTC)
 * I struggle to see the value that would be brought by this change. Rikster2 (talk) 02:09, 17 April 2020 (UTC)
 * Red information icon with gradient background.svg Not done: please make your requested changes to the template's sandbox first; see WP:TESTCASES. I think you might need a pipe after birth_name. Since you seem to have some familiarity with template coding, you are welcome to copy the live template into the sandbox, make your change there, and show how it would work on the testcases page. – Jonesey95 (talk) 02:54, 17 April 2020 (UTC)
 * It's a moot point without consensus for the change.—Bagumba (talk) 04:05, 17 April 2020 (UTC)
 * One way to develop consensus is to make a change to the sandbox, show how it would work using test cases, and ask in an appropriate forum whether people prefer the existing way or the proposed new way. I was offering that option to the OP. – Jonesey95 (talk) 04:44, 17 April 2020 (UTC)
 * Sure. Except in this case, it's a new field that is straightforward how it would look, not an existing field being presented differently. Best.—Bagumba (talk) 05:03, 17 April 2020 (UTC)

Notable High School Coaches
There are many notable high school athletic coaches. This infobox would benefit from adding parameters for coaching wins, losses, winning percentages, and championships (state/national). The college coach infobox has many of these items. Thanks! PhillyHarold (talk) 21:33, 17 May 2020 (UTC)
 * I personally agree that adding coaching record (with win%) would be a good addition to the infobox as it is one of the few important things “lost” when someone moves from player infobox to college coach, so I would support that recommendation. Championships can be added to the “highlights” section so no modification is needed there. Rikster2 (talk) 22:05, 17 May 2020 (UTC)
 * Rikster2 So, what happens now? I've never edited or requested an edit on a template. PhillyHarold (talk) 23:00, 17 May 2020 (UTC)
 * Some others need to weigh in to see if there is consensus to add the new field(s). I’ll put a message on the NBA project to try and get more input. Rikster2 (talk) 23:10, 17 May 2020 (UTC)
 * Thanks! PhillyHarold (talk) 23:12, 17 May 2020 (UTC)
 * So do we want to merge this template with Template:Infobox college coach? ~ EDDY  ( talk / contribs )~ 00:24, 18 May 2020 (UTC)
 * We can’t do that. The template has much wider use than just basketball. It is very important for college coaches who coached more than one sport. But we can adapt this template to more fully cover coaches, which helps with professional, college and HS coaches. Rikster2 (talk) 00:44, 18 May 2020 (UTC)
 * OK, I can support adding the extra parameters. I remember having difficulty picking which infobox to use for certain coaches. So would you have seperate coaching record for high school, college, and pro? ~ EDDY  ( talk / contribs )~ 01:52, 18 May 2020 (UTC)
 * Support on condition that (similar to player stats), it only displays if coach_end is specified. This avoids churn of daily stats updates.—Bagumba (talk) 02:28, 18 May 2020 (UTC)
 * I'm okay with Bagumba's condition. The vast majority of coaches I want to edit and expand upon are retired. PhillyHarold (talk) 03:13, 18 May 2020 (UTC)
 * Let me caveat this by saying I will support adding this either way, but I’d like to propose that unlike player stats we enable coaching record to be visible for active coaches. I think this is a real barrier for editors being willing to convert navboxes when coaches return to college from pro leagues - that infobox college coach allows coaching record to display. I personally think coaches are a little different than players and frankly the “daily changes to stats” still happens to their coaching table so I don’t think this is a huge drawback with the infobox. Rikster2 (talk) 02:02, 19 May 2020 (UTC)

Coaching stats design
Would we just have one dedicated section for coaching stats only, combining all levels/leagues like at John Calipari? Or should the stats be combined with playing stats and grouped per league, like baseball with Bobby Valentine? Other ideas?—Bagumba (talk) 11:04, 18 May 2020 (UTC)
 * Something like Calipari’s looks more space-efficient. I’d be careful allowing too many possible entries. You don’t want a coach showing record for six different leagues. You have people like John Beilein who coached at four levels of college basketball, high school and the NBA. That’d be a mess. Rikster2 (talk) 12:05, 18 May 2020 (UTC)
 * Yes, it would be a little messy, but in some instances it's what makes the coach notable. That being said, Calipari’s seems the most efficient. I am assuming that had he also head coached at the high school level there would be a line for that record similar to: 125-30 (high school) 733–215 (college) 72–112 (NBA). PhillyHarold (talk) 12:42, 18 May 2020 (UTC)
 * Just remember that there are/have been hundreds of pro leagues around the world and something like 15 different college divisions (when you add men and women) and that this infobox is used universally. The cleanest would be someone who coached one pro league, one college division and high school. We need to anticipate how these new fields would be interpreted by editors who desire completeness/preciseness and plan accordingly. For messy examples, look at Eric Musselman and Bill Musselman. Rikster2 (talk) 13:50, 18 May 2020 (UTC)
 * Honest question - it is a bit long, but why do you feel Eric Musselman is messy? Could all professional coaching other the NBA be condensed into Other Professional Leagues? Or, in the case of Musselman, does this need to be in a wiki table in the body of the article. This is all new to me, so I am open for just about anything. PhillyHarold (talk) 14:42, 18 May 2020 (UTC)
 * It seems that Musselman is messy because he coached in the CBA, NBA, D-League, and college. Though I wouldn't be opposed to having a stats part for each league. Not that big of a deal, or we could focus on college/NBA. ~ EDDY  ( talk / contribs )~ 15:00, 18 May 2020 (UTC)
 * I’d be careful allowing too many possible entries.: So should the template allow free-form text, like w/ Calipari, or should it enforce how many win–loss stat lines can be displayed?—Bagumba (talk) 16:10, 18 May 2020 (UTC)
 * Well, I’m certainly not the final decision-maker but it feels like if we make it Free-form we will need to agree on some good guidelines on how it should appear. We can always do free form and if that proves a problem for some reason we can amend the box again. Rikster2 (talk) 16:19, 18 May 2020 (UTC)
 * Actually, it can be easier to go stricter and then relax later. Going the other way around may require a lot of manual changes, as bots get trickier with transforming non-structured text.  We can always expand the number of entires if needed, like how we do with the existing teamN and cteamN parameters.—Bagumba (talk) 16:27, 18 May 2020 (UTC)
 * I agree with stricter first then relax as needed. PhillyHarold (talk) 18:31, 18 May 2020 (UTC)
 * I’d say 5 entries (league/level plus record w win%) would cover 90% of cases. You can always justify eliminating (for example) minor league results. Let’s just get it done and try it on a couple. I am anxious to stop the constant conversion of articles as people move from pro to college roles (John Beilein being a recent example). Rikster2 (talk) 19:33, 18 May 2020 (UTC)
 * OK I'm cool with 5 entries for this. We could have pro, college, high school and a misc category. Let's do this. ~ EDDY  ( talk / contribs )~ 19:43, 18 May 2020 (UTC)
 * Bam! PhillyHarold (talk) 01:23, 19 May 2020 (UTC)

Mock-up See 4 testcases starting at Template:Infobox_basketball_biography/testcases. Please provide any feedback on display or template parameter names. Feel free to add more test cases.—Bagumba (talk) 11:29, 19 May 2020 (UTC)
 * Sorry everyone, been offline a little. I like the changes made in the test cases. PhillyHarold (talk) 20:31, 21 May 2020 (UTC)

Template updated I've added the coaching parameters, and have updated Phil Jackson, Jerry Sloan and Red Auerbach.—Bagumba (talk) 10:37, 26 May 2020 (UTC)
 * Bagumba, Thanks for the additional parameters. Just used them in an update and they work fine. PhillyHarold (talk) 15:40, 27 May 2020 (UTC)

Question about listing NYC boroughs in infobox
The guidelines for Template:Infobox person suggest for the birth_place field: "Omit unnecessary or redundant details. For example, it is not necessary to state: New York City, New York, United States when New York City, U.S. conveys essentially the same information more concisely."

As a start, I've changed the infoboxes in the Carmelo Anthony and Kareem Abdul-Jabbar articles to use "New York City" alone without the extra "New York", with boroughs as appropriate. Do you think the infobox person guideline should extend to other basketball articles and probably other sportspeople too? Arbor to SJ (talk) 22:43, 11 June 2020 (UTC)
 * Wait, the infobox shouldn’t say just a city alone. That’s not the format. This is not Infobox:person. It’s consistent City, State. As for Boroughs, it has always been practice to use Borough, State is that is prevalent, but not with NYC in the middle. Rikster2 (talk) 23:10, 11 June 2020 (UTC)
 * I usually list Borough, New York if its known. If it's not, I do New York City, New York. ~ EDDY  ( talk / contribs )~ 00:01, 12 June 2020 (UTC)
 * Omitting state is WP:LOCALCONSENSUS, at best, for Infobox person.(Template_talk:Infobox_person/Archive_33) There is no consensus to apply it here, where the case is clearly documented. At the very least, U.S. places in real life are commonly referred to by "city, state" when referring to one's birthplace or hometown. It doesn't make sense to have an arbitrary rule that will churn infoboxes, where drive-by editors will "fix" the inconsistency by adding missing states.—Bagumba (talk) 06:36, 12 June 2020 (UTC)

Broken NBA.com link
You are invited to join the discussion regarding the broken NBA.com links at Wikipedia_talk:WikiProject_National_Basketball_Association—Bagumba (talk) 11:28, 18 November 2020 (UTC)

Infobox bodystyle
This infobox is unusually large, both in horizontal width and text sizing. In the sandbox, I tried removing the "bodystyle" parameter that creates this styling, and judging by the testcases, in most cases there is surprisingly little effect on the vertical height of the infobox. Should this change (or parts of it) be implemented? — Goszei (talk) 04:32, 1 February 2021 (UTC)
 * Removing "bodystyle" causes a lot of lines to break. The line-breaking can be fixed using Template:Nowrap, but a lot of pages would need fixing. In addition, you are using the wrong format for the "high_school" parameter, which is "School (City, State)" and not just "School". I notified WP:NBA about this discussion at Wikipedia talk:WikiProject National Basketball Association/Archive 41. – Sabbatino (talk) 08:35, 1 February 2021 (UTC)
 * I also left similar notice at WT:BBALL and WT:CBBALL.—Bagumba (talk) 09:35, 1 February 2021 (UTC)
 * What is the basis for judging it as "unusually large"? It seems it's been at about that width as far back as 2009. Changing it could only make it longer (e.g. Template:Infobox_basketball_biography/testcases), and short bios are already limited in placing more photos in the page because the infobox extends so long.—Bagumba (talk) 09:09, 1 February 2021 (UTC)
 * I don’t see it as particularly large so I guess to me it seems like an answer in search of a problem. Rikster2 (talk) 12:09, 1 February 2021 (UTC)
 * Could someone post a comparison of width and text sizes of this infobox vs other major sports info boxes - football, gridiron football, baseball, etc? I’d like to know the relative extent of the issue, if there is one. Rikster2 (talk) 12:46, 1 February 2021 (UTC)

Template-protected edit request on 21 April 2021
Please consider changing background of HOF section in from #DCDCDC to #FFBB00 to mirror Template:Infobox college coach. Cubbie15fan (talk) 16:18, 21 April 2021 (UTC)
 * ❌ I'm admittedly not very familiar with sports infoboxes (but decided to handle this request anyway since no one else got around to doing it for almost a month), but this change seems to be to make that section visually clash with the rest of the infobox (and a custom color for that section was removed in 2013, so it's not clear this is non-controversial enough to implement anyway). To be clear, I'm not strongly against this, and you might be able to convince me to do this, but I don't see a strong reason to do this right now. * Pppery * it has begun... 02:26, 18 May 2021 (UTC)

Parameter for birth name
What is the reason for introducing the  parameter? Because you current reasoning is nothing more than a WP:OSE case. You cannot just come and blindly introduce a new parameter without any discussion. WP:TPECON quite clearly says that you ought to discuss the changes before introducing them. – Sabbatino (talk) 20:44, 5 June 2021 (UTC)
 * I undid the change for now. I'll start the discussion some other time. -- Zyxw (talk) 21:22, 5 June 2021 (UTC)
 * FYI: Last discussion was at Template_talk:Infobox_basketball_biography/Archive_3.—Bagumba (talk) 02:28, 6 June 2021 (UTC)

Nationality
Convention for this infobox in particular is to state both place of birth and nationality, even if redundant. This is directly contrary to WP:INFONAT. For example, if a player is born in the U.S., it is unnecessary to say "American" as well. It makes sense in some cases, like Kyrie Irving, to list both when the two do not correlate, but in most cases it is duplicative, which is why WP:INFONAT exists. I don't see why local consensus should overrule that policy. AllegedlyHuman (talk) 20:56, 21 June 2021 (UTC)
 * Americans are probably a bad example as for American basketball figure consensus is City, State with no mention of country. Same with Canada and Australia. Rikster2 (talk) 00:11, 22 June 2021 (UTC)
 * Yes, listing "American" as nationality without "U.S." in the birthplace is consistent with the guideline. The other factor is dealing with athletes and their eligibility for national teams. For example, Roger Federer's birthpace is shown with "Switzerland" and his sports country is also shown as Switzerland. That redundancy is standard practice across many sports bios, not just basketball.—Bagumba (talk) 01:09, 22 June 2021 (UTC)
 * Wherever this discussion needs to be held, I'll take it there. I think this is unnecessarily repetitive. AllegedlyHuman (talk) 18:04, 22 June 2021 (UTC)

3x3 basketball players
Should be there a separate section dedicated to 3x3 (esp. 3x3 teams played). This could be useful for cases of players who played both the traditional 5x5 and the 3x3.Hariboneagle927 (talk) 06:21, 19 July 2021 (UTC)
 * Are you referring to leagues like the Big3? From Wikipedia_talk:WikiProject_Basketball, I'd guess that those stints are not notable enough for the infobox at this time. They can go in the prose.—Bagumba (talk) 07:15, 19 July 2021 (UTC)

Use of arrows
It appears to be convention to use an arrow symbol (like →) in the team# parameters of this template for NBA players who might have spent part of a season in the NBA G League. You can see an example of what I'm referring to in the infoboxes of Malcolm Miller (basketball) and Ryan Arcidiacono, but the same thing is probably found in many more articles as well. The meaning of such a symbol isn't really intuitive (I thought was stray syntax) and probably the casual reader won't understand its intended meaning unless they decided to go digging through this template's documentation page. Is this a convention used outside of Wikipedia by NBA websites or NBA publications? Perhaps there's a better way to do such a thing using parenthesis or an efn. Maybe even adding an explanation to what the symbol means would work as well. -- Marchjuly (talk) 03:43, 30 August 2021 (UTC)
 * The convention started in 2010 per Wikipedia_talk:WikiProject_National_Basketball_Association/Archive_15. Apparently modeled after WP soccer bios using it for players on loan (also without a key) Another option is to do like Infobox NFL biography, which automatially detects when to add the ibx footnote * Offseason and/or practice squad member only—Bagumba (talk) 05:44, 30 August 2021 (UTC)
 * It isn’t for when a player spends part of a year in the G League, it is specifically when a player is on assignment in the G League but is on an NBA roster. It is also used for a player on loan, which occurs for European leagues just like with soccer (again, player under contract with one team but playing for another under an agreement). I think it would be a good idea to add coded language like the NFL articles that says “on loan or assignment,” or something similar. I don’t personally like the footy way of putting “loan” in parenthesis after - seems like you’d just do that and ditch the arrow, both is redundant. Rikster2 (talk) 08:05, 30 August 2021 (UTC)
 * Oops. I guess I never read enough footy bios to notice the "(loan)". I agree, it looks silly to use → and still repeat its meaning on each line.—Bagumba (talk) 08:18, 30 August 2021 (UTC)
 * Thank you both for clarifying things a bit. I first thought the arrow was just random syntax perhaps left over from some cleanup. I actually was going to remove it, but checked the infobox template's documentation page first just to make sure. Anyway, an arrow without any type of explanation seems meaningless to me. Maybe most readers won't care either way, but it seems like there should be some better way to do what the arrow seems to be intended to do. It's almost as if it was added to sort of create artificial indentation among the list of teams in the infobox so that the "on loan" teams appear to be offset in some way. If the arrow is intended to indicate Two-way contract, then maybe it would be better just just rename one of the existing parameters or create a new one for that specific purpose. Another option might be to include something along the lines of  in parenthesis after the NBA team name in the existing team parameters, and maybe there's even a way to set this up so that it's automatic whenever the the particular parameter is populated. -- Marchjuly (talk) 11:04, 30 August 2021 (UTC)
 * It originally applied to G League assignments, but now applies to 2-way's a well.—Bagumba (talk) 12:13, 30 August 2021 (UTC)
 * (Two-way contract: G League Team name): Previous consensus at Template_talk:Infobox_basketball_biography/Archive_2 in 2011 was not to include a parenthetical e.g. "(assigned)". However, I did comment even back then: "explanation for arrow a must"; it just ended up being one of those template cosmetic changes that nobody took up.—Bagumba (talk) 12:18, 30 August 2021 (UTC)
 * Regarding whether parameter changes are needed or not, I'm neutral as long as the implementation is 1) user friendly 2) a bot or similar reformats all the exiting →'s.—Bagumba (talk) 12:36, 30 August 2021 (UTC)
 * I am very much NOT in favor of adding more text to a team line (such as the suggested "two-way contract" appearing before the team name), this is part of why we stopped listing country or league after team names (space). I also think a catch-all for assignments, 2-ways (which are ongoing assignments) and loans is the way to go so the same idea is communicated (that a player is under contract with one team but is temporarily playing for another). Bagumba, is there some way to code the language into the template so it appears like the NFL note at the bottom of the team list? Rikster2 (talk) 13:16, 30 August 2021 (UTC)
 * I just want to note, that this is not just in use for G League players, but also European players who are loaned to other teams. I was able to figure what the arrow meant, but perhaps some explanation would be useful. ~ EDDY  ( talk / contribs )~ 13:54, 30 August 2021 (UTC)

I was asked to comment here for a technical solution, but I thought I'd give a few comments as well. First, this seems to be pretty standard across most sports; for example rugby players use the arrow with and without the (loan) afterward. I did come across loan, which was deleted twice in 2016, but could potentially be revived as, which shows as →. Another option, which might make it more obvious that it's a player going from one team temporarily to another, would be to use ↳ instead of → (which for those of you without browser support, is ); the downside here is that it's not an easily-typed character (I had to copy/paste from Arrow_(symbol)) though I suppose that could be the content of loan. That being said I would agree that this could use some sort of resolution (at the very least, so we get standardisation between related articles, if not all sports that do this). Would it be worth a meta discussion at WP:VPR or WT:SPORTS to hash it out? Primefac (talk) 14:53, 30 August 2021 (UTC)
 * A couple of points:
 * Technically, abbr shouldn't be use for tooltips, per its documentation.
 * As it's been used for the NBA, its not a loan, per se, as these are related to a parent club's development team. The NBA has two distinct concepts: assignment and two-way contracts. The NBA does not have loans, though some other basketball leagues apparently do.—Bagumba (talk) 15:31, 30 August 2021 (UTC)
 * Yeah, I meant tooltip, changed. As for the terminology, fair enough, which might make ↳ a better option all around. Primefac (talk) 15:47, 30 August 2021 (UTC)
 * Another variable is how to handle players like Demetrius Jackson, where → has more than one meaning. In Jackson's case, he was assigned from Boston to Maine and was a 2-way with Houston and Philadelphia. Does the tooltip/footnote generically show "on assignment/2-way", or does it only show what specifically applied for each team.  To complicate things, a player might also be "on loan" at some other point in their career.—Bagumba (talk) 16:30, 30 August 2021 (UTC)
 * That is why I suggested “on loan or assignment." as verbiage. The stuff in the infobox shouldn't take the place of good prose in the article that can explain what is going to in more detail. You could make it “on loan, two-way contract or assignment” if people felt the 2W deal wasn't adequately represented. Let's not over-complicate things. Rikster2 (talk) 16:41, 30 August 2021 (UTC)

I appreciate all of the comments here. I wasn't looking to create lots unnecessary work for anyone. I came across the arrow why looking at something else in Malcolm Miller (basketball) and just didn't know what it meant. I don't think its meaning is something that someone looking for general information about players like Miller would immediately understand. Those involved in editing such articles probably get it right away, but not so sure about others. I also wasn't aware of the different possible meanings of the arrow depending upon the type of sport or type of league. I don't know much about the technical side of templates, which is why I asked Primefac to take a look. I actually thought about the bent arrow symbol (↳) myself after reading some of the initial posts, but I've got no idea if that's technically possible; moreover, even though it's a little bit easier to understand than a straight error since it seems to imply some connection to the entry immeadiately above, it's still a bit vague. If it's possible to add a "teamnote" parameter that works like the one in the NFL template mentioned above, then that might be a good solution. Finally, I'm not suggesting that the infobox should replace content about this type of thing in the body of an article; however, I do think lots of readers probably will look first and perhaps only at the infobox as opposed to reading the entire article; so, perhaps it would be a good idea to make the infobox as clear as possible. -- Marchjuly (talk) 22:45, 30 August 2021 (UTC)
 * I agree with you, my point was just that we should have some standard verbiage that covers all three scenarios to keep it simple and to avoid more than one note at the bottom (because it is possible for all three situations to apply to the same player). The one thing I would say about the straight arow vs. the bent arrow is that the straight arrow is easier to apply because it is one of the options to insert right above the edit summary box. Rikster2 (talk) 13:46, 31 August 2021 (UTC)

Warning about "convert errors" in some parameters in conjunction with embedded citation templates R and Rp

 * See: Template_talk:R
 * Since the template obviously deals with "normal" reference links (created by ) attached to parameter values, it might be worth to enhance it to also deal with certain types of   and   as they are created by rp and r.
 * --Matthiaspaul (talk) 08:29, 2 September 2021 (UTC)
 * There are existing parameters height_footnote and weight_footnote which avoid the problem.—Bagumba (talk) 09:43, 2 September 2021 (UTC)
 * Thanks for the hint. --Matthiaspaul (talk) 10:28, 2 September 2021 (UTC)

Executive/Administration section in Career History
So this template has the sections that show an individual's playing and coaching years in their Career Histories, but why not executive years? Former players and coaches such as Larry Bird, Danny Ainge, Pat Riley and Jerry West continued their careers beyond their playing and/or coaching years and had influence in the league as executives, and the aforementioned list their accolades they received as executives. So it feels appropriate to update this so that the career years can include executive history — Flowerkiller1692 (talk) 18:20, 22 December 2021 (UTC)
 * The last discussion was at Template_talk:Infobox_basketball_biography/Archive_3. It's probably just a matter of someone leading it.—Bagumba (talk) 00:53, 23 December 2021 (UTC)

Adding something for college coaches?
Any possible way to add (| conference  =  ) below the (| league       =   ) so college coaches that are using this infobox don't have it read like this LEAGUE - ACC and could read instead CONFERENCE - ACC?Brian (talk) 01:25, 28 April 2022 (UTC)


 * conference can now be used instead of league. —Bagumba (talk) 09:50, 6 May 2022 (UTC)

Player signatures
I couldn't find it by searching the archives if this topic has been discussed, but could the template be modified to add in a space where a player's signature can be added? This is a feature in the wiki tennis biography templates with Roger Federer as an example. I'd like to add this file to Michael Jordan's page. 350z33 (talk) 02:34, 1 June 2022 (UTC)
 * There was no consensus in an RfC about it for Infobox person. I'd say no, as it goes against MOS:INFOBOXPURPOSE, and the infobox is often already too long to begin with.—Bagumba (talk) 02:49, 1 June 2022 (UTC)
 * I also oppose the proposal to add signatures to the infobox. In addition, Bagumba already wrote the rest. – Sabbatino (talk) 14:11, 1 June 2022 (UTC)

Where should Conference Finals MVP's be placed in the infobox?
See above. --SdHb (talk) 13:20, 2 June 2022 (UTC)


 * @SdHb: It's not clear what "above" you are referring to. In any event, I suspect it's a NBA content issue you are referring to.  I'd recommend posting your concern, with some added context, at WP:NBA instead.  There generally tends to be more watchers there (and the template talkpage here is more suitable for internal template coding, not template usage). Regards.—Bagumba (talk) 13:55, 2 June 2022 (UTC)

Alt text
Is there any way to add alt text with this infobox? Thank you. Therapyisgood (talk) 14:25, 29 June 2022 (UTC)
 * I've seen the |alt parameter used in several articles including Paige Bueckers. Should this be added to the template's documentation? Does it work? Therapyisgood (talk) 21:48, 5 July 2022 (UTC)
 * This has been resolved (added to the template), thank you. Therapyisgood (talk) 02:18, 17 August 2022 (UTC)